When drilling a fresh wellbore in the vicinity of underground hydrocarbon reservoirs, it is often desirable to fracture the walls of the drilled wellbore following drilling. This stimulates the productivity and flow of hydrocarbons into the wellbore.
Known methods of fracturing involve withdrawing the drill string from the wellbore followed by pressurising the downhole environment to overcome the fracture pressure of the surrounding formation, to produce fracturing. This is typically followed by further drilling followed by again withdrawing the drill string and pressurising the wellbore to cause fracture. This sequence of drilling followed by fracturing can be repeated several times as a wellbore is drilled.